“’The hardest thing is to be sincere,’ young André Gide wrote in his journal in 1890, decades before receiving the Nobel Prize…” And so began a recent Brain Pickings.org treatise on the topic of sincerity, which in turn collided with a raft of other articles and posts I’ve seen recently on that old...
“If you want to know what your brand stands for just ask someone what they think…” has to be one of the most useless pieces of advice I’ve ever heard given to an organisation (right up there with “if you’re not delighting your customers you’re wasting your time”). It is true...
Companies are communicating more than ever before. So why does so much of it fail? Amid entreaties to engage customers, an important first step languishes in a mire of jargon and self-aggrandisement. Think “About Us” pages, profiles, bios, product and service descriptions, vision and values statements, and media announcements. It seems...
How can Optus even consider the idea of changing its name? Or furthermore, absurdly consider changing it to what has been effectively its positioning for the past few years? Plenty has been written about the insanity of Optus potentially changing its name to “yes”. What’s next? Commbank calling itself “can” can’t be...
A fair warning on what follows – I’m feeling a bit grumpy today. In the course of what passes for doing brand work, a lot of organisations take aim at elements of their marketing and identity. Which inevitably results in people getting an announcement from them where they proudly extol their...
“You can’t give people what they want. You can give them something else.” This quote by the late Anthony Martignetti stopped me in my tracks because it perfectly encapsulates what organisations struggle with and provides the answer – all neatly presented in two sentences. The problem isn’t that people can’t tell you...
It was my birthday a few months ago and around that time I started getting the ubiquitous “we’ve got a gift for you” emails from various organisations. And they all shared two things in common. They required me to purchase something to receive my gift (a.k.a discount) and they had a...
Every week I see the stories trumpeted across the pages of the business press. “Brand launch”, as if it is a space shuttle shimmering with unspent force just waiting for lift off. “Rebrand”, complete with (at least) a shiny new logo, clever tagline and assorted related items. Box ticked, event...
In the past, my last article for the year has been “The Good, the Brand and the Ugly” but this year I thought I’d take another approach. Because while there is plenty of brand good I can praise and no shortage of brand ugly to be lampooned, this year I’d like...
I was interviewed last year for an ABC News story about the new questions around the VW braking issues that are being raised in light of the emissions cheating scandal. The show aired last Sunday night and the next day I sent out a quick tweet noting that part of the interview...